Cartoon Kate

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Read the first chapter. Threads: the Calais Cartoon

This is the original blog post

that I wrote in October 2015 after a brief visit to the Calais Jungle refugee camp. Threads: the Calais cartoon. After I got back, the comic kind of vomited itself out of me. I was overwhelmed by the experience of meeting the people living in the Jungle, but that’s nothing compared to the reality of having to live in such conditions. When I got back, people would ask me “What was it like?” and I would be dumbfounded, at a loss for how to describe the situation. But that’s one of the beautiful things about graphic reportage. I can’t begin to tell you what the Calais Jungle was like, but I can show you.

Threads: the Calais cartoon

In 2015, eight hundred and fifty thousand people fled for their lives to Europe.

At least three thousand four hundred and six people died in the Mediterranean sea.Of that great mass of people, a few thousand washed up Calais, France, trying to attempt the dangerous crossing to England. By the French and British governments, they were hung out to dry.

Of that great mass of people, a few thousand washed up Calais, France, trying to attempt the dangerous crossing to England. By the French and British governments, they were hung out to dry.

By the French and British governments, they were hung out to dry.

Thanks to the generosity of my crowd funders, I printed and distributed “about 12,000” copies of this cartoon. These were taken by grassroots refugee support groups and sold in aid of their regional efforts. Thanks everyone for getting this out there.

Single, signed copies of the comic can be bought from my web shop.

New graphic novel! Threads from the Refugee Crisis

This blog post, and subsequent trips to Northern France, caused Threads: the Calais cartoon to grow into something more. The graphic novel Threads from the Refugee Crisis took me ten months to research, draft and draw. It’s in the shops now. I have an arrangement with Verso that a refugee charity can bulk buy copies at a discount and sell them on to raise funds directly. Please contact me via the contact form on this website if you would like to take advantage of this opportunity to use my work to make money for refugees.